Last week, we announced that Baiyin Zhou joined Ascent Venture Partners as our newest senior associate. This is particularly exciting because adding to our team is the most important thing we do – and it’s not something we do often. Baiyin is our first new investment team member in 10 years. At Ascent, we treat hiring very seriously, and ourRead more…

For more than 30 years, we have been laser focused on investing in early stage business technology in the northeast U.S. because we believe an ideal combination of factors exist: B2B tech has the potential for capital efficient and rapid growth which fits the venture model well, the competition is lower than the west coast, and, perhaps most importantly, theRead more…

Machine learning, a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building, is at the top of the “hype curve” for emerging technologies and is one of the top 10 strategic technology trends for 2016, according to Gartner. It’s safe to say that most of us are already interacting with machine learning applications on a daily basis whether it’s Apple’sRead more…

This year’s RSA conference was bigger than ever with more than 40,000 attendees. San Francisco buzzed with security vendors, buyers and investors as they crowded the lobbies of hotels and coffee shops with endless meetings. Being immersed in the atmosphere at RSA was both invigorating and overwhelming. It proved that while the need for cybersecurity solutions has never been moreRead more…

We’d like to recognize the many successes and accomplishments our portfolio companies achieved in 2015. From impressive rounds of funding to key acquisitions, these companies continue to be leaders in their sectors. While we won’t attempt to capture them all, below are some representative highlights: CloudLock, a leading cloud cybersecurity and CASB provider, had a rewarding year filled with impressiveRead more…

The modern security landscape is becoming a competitive arms race between cyber-attackers and defenders. Threats have matured, risks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and vulnerabilities across the enterprise are commonplace – and evolving. While security spending has ballooned as a result – Gartner forecasted that $77 billion would be funneled globally toward IT security efforts in 2015 – it is notRead more…

I’m thrilled today to welcome Peter Lee as the new CEO of RapidMiner. When we invested in RapidMiner in February of this year, we enthusiastically backed founder Ingo Mierswa and his vision to bring powerful, predictive analytics to the business analyst. Under Ingo’s leadership, the RapidMiner team developed the leading next generation predictive analytics platform (placed in the Leaders QuadrantRead more…

We love when our partners succeed. And today, we’re very pleased to offer congratulations to our portfolio company CloudLock, the leading provider of cloud cybersecurity solutions, and highlight their exemplary award recognition in the last couple weeks. Yesterday, co-founder and CEO Gil Zimmermann, was publicly named as EY Entrepreneur of the Year in New England, recognizing his excellence and extraordinaryRead more…

A recent look at 2015 innovations trends by IDC shows significant growth in nearly every area impacting enterprise IT – including cloud, big data and analytics, mobile and internet of things. In fact, cloud services, a hotbed of activity in 2014, will likely accelerate in 2015 with $118 billion in spending on the greater cloud ecosystem. As the topic risesRead more…